Words by Robbie Clark
Photography by Jacklyn Greenberg

Kicking an Idea Around

As a very recent graduate from Harvard Business School, where she had the daunting challenge of running an innovative socio-tech company she founded while also keeping up with her obviously challenging course work, one would assume Jessica Matthews didn’t know squat about (let alone have time for) play.

But “play”–we’ll call it the pursuit of doing an activity just for the sake of having fun–was the crux of Matthews’ studies while in school (no, we’re not talking about Beer Pong or sorority formals) and it is the core concept behind her business.

On the surface, Uncharted Play, which now has its office in the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan, makes play things that in turn generate energy after they’ve been played with, such as the Soccket, a soccer ball that can power an accompanying LED lamp, and Pulse, a jump rope with an accompanying adaptor that can charge small appliances like cellphones. But the philosophy and mission behind Uncharted Play has more gravitas than producing a few volts from a lithion-ion battery: Matthews wants her company to inspire children to be the next generation of social inventors to challenge the status quo.

To read more about Uncharted Play and Soccket, subscribe to CAKE&WHISKEY magazine or purchase the single issue here.